Reality Doesn't Exist
by proudmarveltrash
Summary: Most people use their powers for good or for evil, wanting to change the world in one way or another. Alice, however, isn't most people. Alice uses her manipulation over reality to become a street magician. She isn't like the other candidates Fury considered for the Avengers Initiative, but with things coming into play he can barely comprehend, he doesn't have many other options.
1. Card Tricks

**Card Tricks**

With cheery music thumping through the small speakers on either side of the table I had set up on the busy New York street corner, I looked over the small crowd that had gathered as I ran a deck of cards up my forearm, grinning wickedly. After allowing the cards to drop back into a pile in my palm, I fanned them into a half-circle and held them out to the nearest onlooker. "Pick a card."

The young boy glanced up at his mother, asking silent permission before he pulled a random card out of the deck. I asked his name, and he responded that it was Jimmy. "All right Jimmy," I instructed, placing the rest of the deck onto the table, "rip that in half."

He knit his eyebrows with confusion, clutching the card closer to his chest. "But aren't you going to guess what it is?"

I chuckled and bent down to rest my hands on my knees so that I could meet him at eye level, wiggling my eyebrows playfully. "I'm going to do something even cooler." He pursed his lips adorably as he considered the subjective 'coolness' of my own trick versus the one he originally thought I was going to perform before turning the card on its side and ripping it straight down the middle.

"Perfect! Wow, you're really strong, kid." I praised, which earned me a small smile and a blush that made the rest of the crowd laugh at the boy's apparent shyness. "Wait a minute... where did it go?"

Jimmy's eyebrows shot up to his hairline as he held his hands out, realizing that the moment he took his eyes off the card it had vanished into thin air. He immediately began searching his pockets and the floor around him while everyone else mumbled to each other, asking whether anyone else had seen it vanish.

"Oh!" I exclaimed, wiggling my fingers before reaching into my back pocket and producing his card- now in one piece again. "Here it is!" The crowd laughed and applauded as Jimmy snatched the card from me, pressing the card to his nose as he studied it. "Do me a favor and hold onto that, will you?" I questioned with a wink, patting the boy's shoulder. He nodded enthusiastically and I copied his movement before clapping my hands together and turning my attention back to the still growing audience. "For this next trick, I'll need yet another volunteer!"

"I'll do it." A tall brunette man in a black business suit stepped forward, tucking his sunglasses into his jacket pocket as he stood in front of me.

"Fabulous! Your name, sir?"

"Phil."

"Okie dokie, Phil." I held my hand out to the deck of cards sitting on the table. "If you'd be so kind as to select a card, any card." I waited for him to sift through the deck and pull a card out before pulling a blindfold out from one of my pockets and tying it over my eyes. "Now, show your card to the rest of the audience." Keeping my eyes covered so that I was totally blind, I counted to ten to give him time to show the card around. "All done?"

"Yep," he answered in a dull voice, and I absent-mindedly wondered why he had volunteered for the trick in the first place if he wasn't excited.

Deciding it didn't matter, I smiled brightly. "Well done, Phil! Now I want you to hold it out in front of me with the number still facing you. Tell me when you've done that, okay?"

"All right... done."

"Ah, he's a winner isn't he?" I asked, turning my head in the direction of the crowd that I couldn't see before fixing my thumb over my middle finger and pressing it to the back of the card. "Now, I really hope you're still around, Jimmy."

"I'm right here!" he said, tugging on the bottom of my shirt.

"Fantastic," I smiled. "I knew I could trust you, kid. What I need you to do is look at the card in Phil's hand. Can you do that for me, Jimmy?"

"Yep!" I heard the shuffling of his feet as he moved from my side to stand next to Phil. "Ready!"

"Is it the same card you ripped in half?"

"Umm, no... Did I do something wrong?"

I scoffed and shook my head, waving the hand I didn't have pressed against the back of the card dismissively through the air. "Of course not, Jimmy! But why don't you-" I flicked my fingers against the back of the card "-look again?" The surprised gasps and loud clapping signalled that it was in fact the same card, and I took this as my cue to pull my blindfold off and bow extravagantly. "And let's not forget to thank our two handsome assistants," I added, holding my arms out towards Phil and Jimmy before adding my own claps to the group's.

After those two did their own bows- one of which was far more reserved than the other- I turned back to the crowd with an apologetic smile. "I'm afraid that's all for today, folks. But fear not! I shall return tomorrow with all new tricks to amaze and astound."

While the crowd cleared out, dropping tips into the jar as they passed it, I worked on cleaning my small table up to move back into my house a few streets away. When everyone else was gone, however, I noticed that one man had hung around. "Phil, my main man," I grinned, shutting the music off. "How can I help you, buddy?"

Phil stood on the opposite side of the table from me with a small smile and his fingers laced together so that his hands hung loosely in front of himself. "How did you pull that trick off?"

"Ah," I chuckled, shaking my head as I picked up the deck of cards to put them back into their box. "I'm afraid I can't help you there. A magician never reveals her secrets, you know?"

"But you're no ordinary magician, are you, Alice?" I faltered slightly at the fact that I had never told him my name, dropping a few of the cards as I slid the deck into its container. While I picked up the cards I had dropped onto the table to add them into the box, Phil produced a pristine white business card from his pants pocket. "Agent Coulson with Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. And yes," he continued with a nod when I raised an eyebrow, "I know it's a mouthful."

"Yeah," I laughed lightly, finishing off my packing before leaning foward with my palms pressed against the table. "You really should start calling it by a nickname. But, I digress. What is it you want from me, Agent Coulson?"

"I'm here to speak with you about a project my superiors and I would like you to be a part of."

"And what project would that be?"

"The Avengers Initiative."


	2. SHIELD

**SHIELD**

A full week passed before I heard from Phil again. He called me one morning to tell me that they were assembling the Avengers and that I could expect a car to be in front of my house waiting for me within the hour. I asked if there was anything I would need to bring with me, and it made me laugh when he paused before saying, "Bring your cards."

Just like Phil said, twenty minutes later there was a black SUV sitting in front of my door. I shoved my pack of cards into my back pocket before walking outside, locking the door behind myself and skipping over to the car. I pulled the door open and beamed at the man I didn't recognize sitting behind the wheel. "I'm assuming you're with Phil?"

"Agent Coulson sent me," he confirmed with a nod of his head. "Get in, please."

"Whatever you say, Jack." I lifted myself into the seat, swinging the door closed before patting a random rhythm on my thighs. "Can I call you Jack? Oh man, how awesome would it be if your name was Jack? Wait, don't tell me your name. I don't want to ruin the illusion. Hey Jack, wanna see a magic trick?"

* * *

After a short car ride, I was moved into something they called a quinjet that took off over the Atlantic. I was flipping my deck of cards between my hands as I looked around the jet, taking in all the advanced technology being used by the stoic co-pilots. "Why do all of you Strategic Homeland Blah Blah Blah people look so angry all the time?" I asked the both of them. "Is it part of your job description? If I make you smile do you get fired, or do I get a prize or something?"

"We'll be landing in five minutes," the pilot on the right replied, completely ignoring my rapid-fire questions. I was not so easily deterred, however.

"Ah, come on. Hey, look at this!" I set my cards down and hooked my fingers in the corners of my mouth, sticking my tongue out and crossing my eyes. My vision was too blurred to see if she looked, but I heard a soft chuckle from the pilot I had been making the face at. I dropped the silly face and smirked at the back of her head, laughing quietly while I picked my cards back up and resumed shuffling them. "So you do have a sense of humor. Don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

Five minutes later, we landed on a large boat that had various other aircrafts dotted across the top of it. When the back of the jet I was on opened, I was escorted off by the pilot I had made the face at and lead through towers of crates and bustling agents that were preparing for something I was unaware of.

"You'll be meeting four other individuals," Wendy- as I had learned one of the co-pilots' name was after a lot of badgering- explained. "Only three of them are currently on board, but the other one will be arriving later today."

"Sounds like a party," I nodded, sidestepping to dodge a small-framed agent that sprinted past me before continuing my path behind Wendy.

"I'm not sure that's the word I'd use."

"Stop being so pessimistic, Wendy!" I caught up to the woman and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, tugging her into my side with a cheeky smile. "I've never met another person like myself before. What's the worst thing that could happen?"

Instead of answering, Wendy shot me a withering look before stepping out of my grasp and pointing towards a fidgety brunette man in a tan suit that turned to look at us when she cleared her throat. "Alice, this is Dr. Banner, one of your colleagues. Dr. Banner, this is Alice Peterson."

"Nice to meet you," the man greeted with a reserved smile, holding his hand out for me to shake.

I took his hand in mine and shook it with a bright smile. "Nice to meet you too. They didn't tell me much about who I'm supposed to be working with."

He chuckled quietly, glancing at Wendy before rubbing the palms of his hands together nervously. "Yeah, SHIELD really isn't in the business of sharing information."

"SHIELD!" I exclaimed with a laugh, clapping my hands together. "Thank you! I thought I was going to have to call it Strategic Homeland Blah Blah Blah the whole time."

Just as I realized that he hadn't actually answered my question, I was interrupted before I could ask it again by somebody calling out Dr. Banner's name. The three of us turned to see a redheaded woman and a blond man that looked vaguely familiar walking towards us. "Well, here come the other two you're meeting. That's my cue," Wendy nodded, pivoting on her heel and marching off without a goodbye.

"Oh, yeah. Hi," Dr. Banner smiled in the same shy way at the blond man that he had at me, shaking his hand. "They told me you'd be coming."

The blond man that I was still trying to place turned to me and held his hand out. "You must be Alice. Steve Rogers."

My grip on his hand tightened as my eyebrows shot up to my hairline, his name clicking in the back of my head. "Oh! Wow," I laughed, shaking his hand. "Captain America. You're still around, huh? What are you, 100 years old?"

He chuckled shyly, glancing at the ground before returning his gaze to me and shoving his hands into his pockets. "Not quite. You know about me?"

"Well, I knew about the comics," I shrugged. "My granddad collected them and showed them to me when I was a kid. Very cool stories. Or reality. I never really understood where the line between truth and fiction stood on that subject."

He nodded while the redheaded woman took a small step forward and offered me her hand, which I also shook. "Natasha Romanoff."

"Alice."

After we had all introduced ourselves, Steve turned to Dr. Banner. "Word is you can find the cube."

"Is that the only word on me?"

"Only word I care about."

"Only word I _know_ about," I added with a shrug of my shoulders.

Dr. Banner nodded, clearly avoiding answering my implied question, before motioning towards all the hustle and bustle surrouding us. "Must be strange for you, all of this."

"Well," Steve nodded his head towards a group of men jogging past us. "This is actually kind of familiar."

"You all might want to step inside in a minute," Natasha warned, folding her hands together in front of herself. "It's going to get a little hard to breathe."

As if on cue, alarms started sounding overhead as a man's voice sounded over the intercoms, ordering the flight crew to secure the deck. Curious, I ventured closer towards the edge of the boat and looked over the edge while Steve asked from behind me if this was a submarine.

"Really?" Bruce asked with a chuckle. "They want _me_ in a submerged, pressurized metal container?" The two men moved to stand on either side of me just as spinning turbines appeared out of the water, splashing the liquid frantically as they powered up and we began to lift into the air. "No, no this is much worse."

"That is one hell of a magic trick," I breathed with a large smile spreading over my face. I had never flown before, but how terrible could it be?


	3. Magic vs Science

**Magic vs Science**

The three of us followed Natasha inside the helicarrier- as she called it- where I could see that all of the hurrying men and women from earlier must have been rushing to come into what appeared to be the command center to this flying ship. Once inside the room, she walked down a short flight of steps and spoke with a man sitting in front of a computer while Dr. Banner and I stood in front of a large glass table. Steve stood on the opposite side of the table from us, next to probably the most intimidating looking man I'd ever seen in my life.

After instructing the SHIELD agents to engage the retro-reflection panels, the man turned to face Steve, Dr. Banner and I- allowing me to recognize him as Director Nick Fury, thanks to Phil's description when he first recruited me.

"Gentlemen," he greeted, nodding towards the two men. Steve stepped forward and handed him what looked like cash, though I couldn't see how much it was. After accepting it, Fury walked over to where Dr. Banner and I were standing, glancing at me before shaking Dr. Banner's hand. "Doctor, thank you for coming."

"Thanks for asking nicely," he replied with a hint of sarcasm that made me wonder just how 'nicely' they had asked.

Fury turned to me, offering his hand. "And you must be Miss Peterson."

"Alice," I corrected with a nod of my head.

After we shook hands, Fury returned his attention to Dr. Banner when he cleared his throat and quietly slapped his hands together. "So, uh, how long am I staying?"

"As soon as we locate the Tesseract, you're in the wind."

"Mm." Dr. Banner stepped slowly towards the railing of the platform, and having no idea where else to go, I followed after him. "Where exactly are you with that?"

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet." I looked over the railing to see the source of the familiar voice and saw that Phil was standing on the level below us. "Cell phones, laptops... If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

"Well that's a little scary," I commented, rolling back on the balls of my feet. Dr. Banner shrugged one shoulder and nodded in my direction, silently agreeing with me. The rest of the present group, however, elected to ignore my quip.

Natasha stood from where she had been kneeling next to a computer displaying a photo of a man I didn't recognize. "That's still not going to find them in time."

"You have to narrow your field," Dr. Banner suggested. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"How many are there?" Fury asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Instead of answering the rhetorical question, Dr. Banner slid his arms out of his suit jacket and hung it over his arm after rolling his shirt sleeves up to his elbows. "Call every lab you know. Tell them to put their spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

Fury nodded and motioned towards Natasha with one hand. "Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please?"

"You're gonna love it, Doc," Natasha smirked, walking past us and towards a hallway leading to a different part of the helicarrier. "We got all the toys."

After Natasha led the doctor out of the room, everyone except Steve and I dispersed to carry on with their earlier jobs. I considered talking with him, but before I got the chance, he was pulled off to the side by Phil.

Blowing a puff of air upwards that made my bangs ruffle, I twirled in a half-circle on my heel and wandered off down the same hallway Natasha and Dr. Banner had disappeared through. I was still curious about what it was he was so hesitant to talk about, and even if he was going to be working, he seemed to be the most interesting person around here at present.

I knew I was going the right way when I passed by Natasha heading back towards the bridge, and a large window showed me which room Dr. Banner was in. The door slid open when I neared it, allowing me to easily slip inside and look around.

Dr. Banner noticed me enter due to the sound of the door opening, causing him to look away from the computer he had already started working at. "Can I help you with something?"

"No," I shook my head, shrugging half-heartedly before thinking about it for a moment and nodding. "Actually, yes. Am I supposed to call you Dr. Banner, or am I allowed to know your actual name?"

He chuckled shyly, glancing at the floor and his computer screen before looking back to me. "Um, Bruce."

"Umbruce." I adopted a thoughtful look and tapped my chin. "Odd name. I like it."

Bruce knit his eyebrows slightly before shaking his head, the corner of his lips tugging up as he turned back to his computer. "Thanks."

I laughed quietly, examining the room as I walked further in. "So, Umbruce. Do you like magic?"

He looked from the computer to a notepad on the table, scribbling with a pen before typing on the screen, mainly focused on the task at hand. "Sure. Doesn't everybody?"

"Well I didn't ask _everybody_." I teased, raising an eyebrow with a smirk as I rounded one of three tables in the room. "I asked you."

Bruce seemed to think about it for a minute before shrugging noncommittally. "I'm more of a science guy, I guess."

"Ah," I sighed. When I finally made my way to the table he was standing behind, I smiled at him through the glass monitor that hung from the ceiling. "I bet I could convert you, though. Magic is so much more flexible and fun than science."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," I confirmed, taking a few small steps back as I considered which trick I should show him first. "What's your favorite color?"

He raised one eyebrow, leaning around the monitor to look skeptically at me. "Knowing my favorite color constitutes a magic trick?"

"Just tell me, will you?"

Bruce pressed his lips together and returned his attention to the computer, shaking his head. "I don't have a favorite color."

I rolled my head back and groaned dramatically, twirling about randomly on my feet. I didn't do well with boredom, and Bruce wasn't making entertaining myself any easier. "Then just pick one!"

"Okay, okay," he sighed, glancing around the room before pinching his shirt. "Purple."

"Purple," I repeated, crossing one arm over my stomach and resting my chin in my other hand, drumming my fingers against my cheek as I looked over everything in the room. "Purple, purple, purple."

Bruce watched me for a minute, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, he shook his head with slightly raised eyebrows. "Very magical." His sarcastic grin dropped when he turned back to the computer monitor and saw that the text on the screen had changed from green to purple. "Wait..."

"Ta-da!" I smiled brightly, holding my arms out to the side. "But that's not all!" Skipping over to his side, I lifted his notepad and pen. His jumbled letters and numbers that I mentally deemed illegible had also changed from black to purple ink, along with the pen itself.

Bruce looked back and forth from the screen to his notepad before turning to me with a thoroughly confused expression. "Okay, how did you do that?"

With a triumphant grin, I leaned in and whispered, "Magic."

When I pulled back I could see that my explanation had done absolutely nothing for the doctor, but any further describing was interrupted by the door opening once more to reveal that Natasha had returned. She only glanced at Bruce before turning to me and nodding her head towards the hallway. "Come on. We got a hit."

I nodded and started following her out of the room, turning back to wave at Bruce on my way out. "See you in a bit, Umbruce."


	4. Flowers

**Flowers**

I followed Natasha all the way to a hangar on the outskirts of the helicarrier where Steve was waiting for us in his Captain America suit. I looked back and forth between the two of them as Natasha closed the bay door and strapped herself into the pilot seat before inspecting myself with a sigh. Note to self: look into getting a cool combat suit.

On our way to Germany, Natasha explained the situation to me seeing as nobody had bothered to tell me anything yet. From what I gathered, there was another planet called Asgard where a bunch of demigods lived, including the guy we were currently tracking- Loki. He stole the Tesseract, which was basically an immeasurable amount of energy compressed into a small blue cube that nobody had any idea how to control or what Loki was going to use it for.

When he took the Tesseract, he also brainwashed Natasha's partner Clint Barton and the physicist who had been studying the Tesseract, Erik Selvig. Why he took them and what he was using them for was unknown, but it was guaranteed to be bad. This is why SHIELD was gathering their most valuable assets, including myself.

Glad to finally have at least an idea of what was going on and somewhat flattered that SHIELD thought my tricks were valuable, I sat back against the wall of the quinjet and waited for us to arrive at our destination. Thankfully, it wasn't all that long of a wait.

The screaming of the scrambling citizens below us was loud enough to pierce through the metal of the jet, and I watched through the front window as the man I recognized as Loki split himself into multiple bodies, surrounding the crowd. He was giving a speech over something judging by his wicked grin and his outstretched arms, but I couldn't hear exactly what it was. One older man stood from the kneeling civilians, apparently opposing the trickster god.

"That's your cue," Natasha told Steve, slapping a button to lower the jet's door. He grabbed his shield and jumped out of the back, landing in a crouch in front of the protester just as Loki fired blue energy at him with his scepter. My attention wasn't on the Captain for long, however. Around the back of the building, I spotted the faint outline of a man entering the abandoned party hall.

"Oh, man," I groaned to myself. I had never done anything remotely dangerous in my life, but if ever there was a time to get risky, this was it. Before Natasha could close the back, I shook my hands to hype myself up and made a run for it. I could hear Natasha yell something after me, but the sound of wind rushing past me as I dropped onto the rooftop of the building below us drowned out whatever it was.

I tucked my arms in and rolled across the concrete roof, moaning quietly as I pushed myself back up to my feet. " _Ow_."

Underneath me, I heard the sound of the door opening once more and shut myself up, taking small and shallow breaths as I stepped as quietly as possible towards the edge of the roof. On the ground below me I saw a man holding a glass case with a shining silver metal inside of it, but what really caught my attention was the bow and quiver of arrows strapped to his back.

Realizing who exactly it was that I had jumped after, I took a moment to glare at the sky and internally curse the universe for my luck before moving behind him. I was only going to get one shot at this, and considering I really wasn't planning on dying today, I was going to make damn sure it counted.

Once I was sure he was walking towards the right, I took in a deep breath and pushed myself off the roof, landing with a grunt on my side behind Clint. My arms were tingling and my palms stung from the impact of the fall, but there was no time for complaining. He whipped around the second he heard my pained groan, and before I could even blink he had an arrow notched and pointed in my direction.

With a small squeak of surprise, I held my hand up in defense and focused on the arrow. By the time he released it, a small bouquet of flowers slammed against my hand instead of the arrow he had originally intended.

While he knit his eyebrows and narrowed his eyes, I took advantage of his confusion to shove myself back onto my feet and quickly take in my surroundings. I had no idea how exactly I was going to stop a highly trained and highly dangerous SHIELD agent under the control of a deranged demigod, but... Nope, that's it. I have no idea what I'm doing.

In the next second, Clint had unsheathed another arrow and aimed it in my direction. I repeated my earlier defense of instantly transforming it into a multicolored group of flowers before moving my attention to the arrows in his quiver and changing them as well with a small twitch of my fingers.

When Clint reached back for an arrow and found that he didn't have them anymore, he growled with frustration and dropped his bow along with the tube holding the metal, reaching for a palm-sized knife strapped to his thigh, pointing it towards me menacingly and moving in closer. "Woah, buddy!" I chuckled nervously, holding my hands up defensively. "I don't know if you're understanding me at all, but I'm working with SHIELD. You know- Fury, Phil, Natasha. Ringing any bells?"

The optimal reaction was that his eyes would lose their inhuman blue hue and he would snap back to reality, but that was a fantasy situation. How he actually reacted was by swinging his weapon in a wide arc that caused me to reflexively shriek and throw my arm up to cover my face. I barely felt the blade tear through the skin of my arm before it was replaced by the soft brush of a feather.

"How are you _doing that_?" Clint shouted, abandoning the feather to drift towards the ground as he gripped my arm and shoved me back against one of the walls in the alleyway.

At this point I could feel my panic clutching at my chest as my heart raced faster than ever before, and I reacted to his violence with the first thought that came to mind. I kicked him as hard as I could in the knee, pushing him backwards when he instinctively dropped my arm to grab the injury.

Once he was off me, I stumbled away from the wall and towards the metal he had abandoned earlier. As soon as I picked it up, loud rock music began playing from the direction of the courtyard Natasha and Steve were fighting Loki in. I held the tube in my right hand as I backed away from Clint and looked up at the sky, searching for the source of the music.

Looking away from the brainwashed man who is currently trying to kill you is a really bad idea, as it turns out. While my attention wasn't on him, Clint took his chance to charge me and tackle me to the ground. I gasped at my sudden lack of air when he landed on top of me, wrestling the metal away from me. "Come on!" I screamed exasperatedly, thrashing under his weight. "Give me a break, Barton!"

"Alice?"

At the sound of somebody calling my name, Clint snatched the tube from me and shoved me against the ground as he pushed himself up, smirking at me rolling pathetically and clutching my gut as he sprinted in the opposite direction with his bow and the metal.

Steve appeared in my vision standing above me with a worried expression a minute later, and I panted a sigh of relief. "I almost had him."

Shaking his head, Steve offered me his hand and pulled me off the ground, patting my shoulder. "Come on. We have Loki on the jet."


	5. Just Scratches

**Just Scratches**

Steve and I joined the rest of our small crew that had been made slightly larger due to the addition of Tony Stark- the man I had to thank for my earlier distraction- and the man we had come to pick up in the first place, Loki, on the jet right before it took off back into the air. Loki sat silently with his back to the right side of the jet, staring unwaveringly at the opposite wall.

After removing his helmet, Tony stood in the front right corner and watched the god with a quiet intensity, as if he was trying to slve a riddle that surrounded him. Steve stood next to him and directly behind Natasha, listening as she told somebody over the radio that Loki wasn't talking.

I sat on the small bench against the left wall with an opened medical kit resting in my lap as I rustled through it, searching for something to clean the cuts on my palms and forearm before bandaging them. My noisy foraging was silenced when Steve mumbled something incoherent to Tony and I stopped myself to better eavesdrop on the conversation.

"What, Rock of Ages giving up so easily?" Tony responded to whatever it was the Captain originally said.

"I don't remember it being that easy," Steve explained. "This guy packs a wallop."

Tony shrugged faintly. "Still, you are pretty spry for an older fellow. What's your thing, pilates?"

"What?"

"Therapeutic exercise," I offered in place of whatever Tony was about to answer. "It's supposed to enhance coordination and balance... Maybe I should try it sometime."

"It's new," Tony added with a nod after glancing in my direction. "You might have missed a couple of things. You know, doing time as a Capsicle."

Steve's jaw flinched in response to the nickname, but other than that he showed no reaction to Tony's pestering. "Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in."

"He didn't tell me anything," I threw in under my breath. " _Still_ hasn't told me anything, actually."

"Yeah, there's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell people."

Just after Tony's statement thunder rumbled throughout the jet, closely followed by quick flashes of lightning. Natasha leaned closer to the window and squinted her eyes, tilting her head. "Where's this coming from?"

The jet shook a few times and I had to clutch the med kit closer to my stomach to keep its contents from spilling out. When I was sure everything inside was safe, I looked back up in time to see Loki pull his arms closer to his chest as he stared at the ceiling.

"What's the matter?" Steve asked, nodding his head in the god's direction to show that he was addressing him. "Scared of a little lightning?"

"I'm not overly fond of what follows."

As if his words were some form of signal, a loud thud against the ceiling rocked the quinjet once again and despite my earlier precaution, the supplies inside the kit on my lap tumbled over the edge and rolled across the floor when I jolted forward. Tony picked up his helmet and slid it back over his head at the same time Steve did the same, though after he had his on he walked towards the back of the jet and pressed the button to open the bay door.

I snatched up a few lost items before they could escape the jet and glared up at the back of Tony's head. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

He had no answer for me when an unknown man dropped onto the open door in a crouched position before slowly standing and turning his gaze to a very frightened looking Loki. When he tried to walk further in Tony raised his hand to blast him, but before he could fire a single shot the man in the cape punched him in the chest with a hammer, sending him soaring over my head and straight into Steve.

Once Tony was out of the way, the man stepped in and grabbed Loki by the throat, swung his hammer in a circle and flew out of the jet all within a matter of seconds.

I finished replacing the scrambled items back into the kit and closed it before standing from the floor the same time Tony did, stepping away from the open door to avoid tumbling out of it.

"And now there's that guy," Tony groaned.

"Another Asgardian?" Natasha called from the front, looking back over her shoulder.

"That guy's a friendly?"

"Doesn't matter," Tony disregarded Steve's question, marching towards the back of the jet. "If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost."

"Stark! We need a plan of attack!"

"I have a plan. Attack."

When Tony jetted out of the quinjet, Steve didn't even hesitate before grabbing one of the available parachutes on the rack against the left wall and strapping it onto his back. "I don't know if that's a good idea," I pointed out. "You might want to hang back and let these guys work out their issues on their own."

"I don't see how I can."

"She's right," Natasha agreed. "These guys come from legend, Cap. They're basically gods."

"There's only one God, ma'am. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that."

After that, there was no more arguing as Steve picked up his shield and ran out of the jet, dropping quickly out of view. Natasha shook her head disbelievingly for a moment before glancing back at me. "Look, those idiots are going to be too busy proving themselves to each other to keep an eye on Loki. I'm going to take this jet down and get them back in here, but I need you to stay in here and keep an eye on the jet. Can you do that?"

"No problem," I agreed easily, already re-opening my med kit. "I'm just gonna sit here and fix up my arm. I have absolutely _zero_ desire to go after those guys. That is all on you."

Natasha's answer was to start lowering the jet, careful to avoid the surrounding trees. I almost spilled the antiseptic a few times on the way down, but other than that it was smooth sailing as she brought us to the ground and unbuckled the straps holding her into the pilot's seat. "Be right back," she called on her way out, marching out into the forest with an intensity I was glad wasn't aimed at me.

Once she was out, I could finally finish cleaning my minor injuries in peace before pulling out a crisp white bandage that I wrapped a few times around my forearm where Clint had been able to cut me. The wound wasn't anything debilitating, but better safe than sorry.

Right as I was fixing to clean up the small scrapes on my hands, my cell phone in my back pocket that I had completely forgotten I even had at this point began to vibrate. Confused on who would be calling so late, I pulled the phone out and glanced at the unfamiliar caller ID before answering. "Hello?"

"Hey, Ali!"

"Oh my god," I sighed at the easily recognizable voice, closing my eyes and massaging the area between my eyebrows. "What did you do this time?"

"Nothing major. I'm just in a, uh... Look, it's not important. I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be... indisposed for a little while, so don't bother visiting for now. I'll let you know when I get things sorted out."

"What things are you trying to sort out?"

An indistinguishable voice shouted something from the other end, and my brother yelled back that he would be right there before returning to our conversation. "Hey, I gotta go Ali. I'll call you soon, okay?" Before I could answer, an ear-shattering _clang_ echoed through the forest and I reflexively flinched to cover my ears. "Woah, what was that? Are you okay?"

"Don't worry about it," I dismissed, standing from my seat and looking outside of the quinjet to try and get a glimpse of what the hell was happening out there. "I'm a little busy with work right now, but next week you bet your ass you're explaining what kind of trouble you've gotten yourself into."

"Next week," he repeated. The same voice from earlier screamed at him again, and he sighed deeply into the receiver. "I really gotta go now. Talk to you later, Ali."

"Yeah. Talk to you later, Scotty."

The phone beeped against my ear when he disconnected the call, and I slipped my phone back into my pocket as I stepped closer towards the edge of where the quinjet morphed into dark green grass. A few seconds later, I saw Natasha walking through the forest with Loki at her side and the three men she had gone after in a small huddle behind her.

Without a word, Natasha walked straight back to the pilot's seat and strapped herself back in, starting the vehicle back up. The four men- including the one who had stolen Loki just minutes ago- all silently chose their own separate places to sit in the jet. I had no idea how Natasha convinced them to come back into the jet and be so quiet about it, but as I closed the door and returned to my own seat, I was sure that I was better off not knowing.

* * *

 **For those of you wondering about Alice's powers, I suggest reading up on the power 'Reality Warping' on the Superpower Wiki. Alice is a low-level reality warper, and will become more powerful as her story in the MCU progresses.**


	6. Insects

**Insects**

It didn't take very long to arrive back at the helicarrier where upon arrival we were greeted by a very stern looking Fury, who instructed the group of SHIELD agents behind him to escort Loki to his room. Once he was led away, Fury turned to the rest of us- specifically Natasha. "Meeting on the bridge in five minutes. Inform Dr. Banner."

With that concise statement, he pivoted on his heel and marched in the same direction Loki had just gone moments ago. Natasha was the first one of us leaving the jet to follow his instructions, heading towards the lab to tell Bruce where we would all be meeting. While she did that, Tony announced that he had his own errand to take care of before separating from the group. The rest of us, with nothing better to do, made our way into the control room.

Once inside, we dispersed among the upper level of the room. Steve took a seat at the table, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin against his hands with a thoughtful expression on his face. The man who had introduced himself earlier as Thor stood next to Fury's pedestal, crossing his broad arms over his even broader chest.

I stood across from Thor, leaning against the silver railing that separated us from the SHIELD agents who never stopped working on whatever it was they did all day. Natasha returned with Bruce in tow, and the sound of them entering made me turn over so that my back was to the agents and my hip rested against the railing.

As Natasha sat on the opposite side of the table from Steve while Bruce opted for simply standing a few feet from the door he had come in from, multiple screens both on the glass table and circled around Fury's pedestal flashed on, displaying a circular glass cell with Loki standing inside. Fury came on screen, stalking around Loki's cell and towards a tilted monitor on a stand while all of us on the bridge watched with rapt attention.

"In case it's unclear, if you so much as scratch that glass..." Fury tapped the monitor in front of him a few times and the floor beneath Loki's cell spiraled open, whipping the air loudly around the room. "It's 30,000 feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?"

He closed the floor, causing the air to still once again before pointing towards the monitor and Loki respectively. "Ant. Boot."

Loki chuckled quietly as he stepped backwards towards the center of the cell. "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you."

"Oh, I've heard." Loki twisted to smirk at the camera, and an involuntary chill ran down my spine at the illusion that he was staring right at me. "A mindless beast. Makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"

"How desperate am I?" Fury took long, deliberate steps closer to Loki. "You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill because it's _fun_. You have made me _very_ desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

Loki turned back to Fury with a mischievous grin, sucking air in between his pursed lips as he shook his head once. "Oh. It _burns_ you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract. To have power- _unlimited_ power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share. And then to be reminded what _real_ power is."

Fury stood, glaring silently at the man in front of him for just one second before smirking and walking away, out of frame. "Well, let me know if _real power_ wants a magazine or something."

Loki looked once more into the camera before the picture disappeared, and we all looked away from the now blank screens to each other. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce asked sarcastically, tucking his arms together over his stomach.

"He's like a fly." I grimaced at the image, sticking my tongue out and knitting my eyebrows with exaggerated disgust. "He just keep buzzing around, pestering people. But he has to have some kind of end goal."

"He has an army called the Chitauri," Thor answered my implied question. "They're not of Asgard, nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army," Steve clarified dubiously. "From outer space."

"So he's building another portal." Bruce removed his glass, twisting the stem between his thumb and forefinger. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?"

Bruce turned to face Thor at the question and nodded. "He's an astrophysicist."

Thor shook his head, glancing at the floor. "He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha explained. "Along with one of ours."

"Well, I wanna know why Loki let us take him." Steve propped his elbows on the table, looking at each of us in the room but focusing mainly on Thor. "He's not leading an army from here."

Bruce tapped his glasses against his hand as he rocked slightly on his feet. "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell the crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak," Thor warned. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother."

"He killed 80 people in two days."

Thor shifted uncomfortably at the dead expression on Natasha's face, and mumbled his weak explanation. "He's adopted."

"Loki wasn't alone," I reminded everyone, bringing the conversation back to the main topic. "Barton was there too, but he got away with that weird silver metal."

"Iridium," Bruce corrected. "But what do they need the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent." We all turned to the new voice in the room to see Tony finally joining us with Coulson at his side, who Tony muttered something unintelligible to. Whatever it was he said caused Coulson to roll his eyes and walk away without a word, walking down the short steps to the lower level of the room while Tony merely shrugged and walked further into the room. "It means the portal won't collapse on him like it did at SHIELD."

When he reached Thor, he held his hand out diplomatically and slapped his shoulder lightly. "No hard feelings, Point Break, you've got a mean swing. Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long as Loki wants."

Tony stepped onto Fury's slightly raised pedestal, flapping his hands flippantly. "Raise the mizzenmast, jib the topsails." A handful of agents turned to look at him with confusion, and he pointed at one man in particular. "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."

As we all stared on in confusion, Tony covered one eye and turned in small half-circles, glaring at the screens before returning his attention to the rest of us. "How does Fury even see these?"

"He turns," Agent Hill answered with an annoyed expression.

"Sounds exhausting." Tony fiddled with the screens, running his hands over every surface within arm's reach. "The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The iridium was the hardest of the bunch to find, and without it they wouldn't have been able to make the portal." He turned to me with his head tilted slightly as he clicked his tongue. "Shame we weren't able to stop him."

I rolled my eyes and looked away from him, though I did contemplate turning his hair pink for a moment longer than I probably should have as he continued rambling on about things I barely understood. "The only major component he still needs is a power source of high-energy density. Something to kick-start the Cube."

"When did you become an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"Last night," Tony answered Hill easily with his hands shoved deep int his pockets. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked in an attempt to stop Tony from going off on yet another tangent. Thankfully, it was Bruce who answered.

"He'd have to heat the Cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."

"Unless," Tony added, holding one hand out towards Bruce, "Selving has figured out how to stabilize the quantumtunneling effect."

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally! Someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" I shrugged and shook my head at Steve's question, throwing my hands up by my side before dropping them to slap against my thighs. I had no idea what these two geniuses were talking about, much like I never understood what my brother was saying when he rambled about his computers. It seemed I would never get away from smart people.

Tony shook Bruce's empty hand firmly with a smile. "It's good to meet you Dr. Banner. Your work on antielectron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster."

Having previously had no idea what Bruce was here for other than to track the Tesseract, Tony's unapologetic words caused a _click_ in the back of my head at the connection finally being made as to who exactly Bruce Banner was. I had heard of the destruction caused by the Hulk on the news, but having been in California at the time, I had never seen the results in person.

As far as I knew, however, Bruce seemed to be plenty in control. Seeing him as the same 'green rage-monster' I had seen on TV seemed pretty far-fetched, but the pursing of his lips and small nod at Tony's statement was enough to tell me that he was in fact the same man.

While I was having this mind-blowing revelation in the back of my mind, Fury entered the room and stated what I had thought just moments ago. "Dr. Banner is only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you would join him."

"I would start with the stick of his," Steve suggested. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the Cube. And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor asked with furrowed eyebrows. "I do not understand."

"I do!" Steve blurted, causing us all to turn to him with mixed expressions ranging from annoyed to humored as he blushed slightly and tried to explain himself. "I- I understood that reference."

Tony rolled his eyes dramatically in Steve's direction before turning to Bruce. "Shall we play, Doctor?"

Bruce held his arm out towards the hallway that led to the lab, walking in front of Tony to lead him to their workplace. "Right this way, sir."

The two men leaving the room seemed to signal the end of the conversation, and everyone moved to either return to their earlier activities or find some way to entertain themselves until they could be useful again. As for myself, I had already planned on entertaining myself by talking with Bruce earlier, but now that I knew he was the Hulk, I was even more intrigued by the man.

Not because he could destroy a city with one hand if the mood struck, but more how he was able to _not_ destroy a city with one hand at all times. With curiosity piqued, I laced my hands behind my back and kicked my heel against the ground as I started my way back to the lab.

* * *

 **I'd like to apologize for taking so long to update. I had some personal problems that have since been resolved, so I will be returning to my update schedule of one chapter every day/every other day.**

 **Also, a huge thanks to the readers/reviewers who have stuck around not only for this story but for my others while I've been away. I seriously love you guys, and hope you'll continue to enjoy these stories as I continue to put them out for you.**


	7. Shocks and Snacks

**Shocks and Snacks**

I waltzed into the lab as if I had been personally invited, smiling brightly at the two scientists when they turned away from their work to look at me at the sound of the doors sliding open and shut again. "Hello boys," I greeted. "You don't mind me intruding, do you?"

Bruce shook his head, though it was ambiguous as to whether it was in answer to my question or if he wasn't sure why I bothered asking in the first place. Tony looked at him in question before turning to me. "You don't have anything better to do?"

"Than spending my valuable free time impressing the most famous man in America and my favorite doctor?" I waved a hand dismissively. "Don't be silly."

"Impressing?" Tony raised one eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest with a smirk. "That's a bold statement, considering all you've done so far is fall off a building and get your ass kicked."

"Tony," Bruce mumbled disapprovingly. "Can we please just work?"

"No," I answered for him, shaking my head. "C'mon, Umbruce. Work is so _boring_ , especially sciency work. I thought we went over this already?"

Tony's mouth gaped open as his hand flew to his chest and he stared at me like I just ran over his beloved childhood pet. "Science is _boring_? I'm sorry, did I hear that correctly? Also-" he turned to Bruce with a quizzical look, pointing at me over his shoulder, "-Umbruce? Am I missing something?"

"You didn't know?" I strolled around the lab, smiling at Bruce- who had pushed his glasses up into his hair and was staring intently at the monitor in front of him, muttering to himself that we weren't there. "That's Dr. Banner's real name. He told me so himself. By the way," I turned back to Tony with a mocking glare, "I do more than fall off buildings. I happen to be quite the skilled magician."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah." I changed my path to stand in front of Tony with a lopsided grin, mimicking his earlier expression of one teasing eyebrow raised. "Would you like to see?"

Tony scoffed skeptically, pointing at Bruce. "Has she tried this with you yet?"

"Mhm," Bruce nodded once as his hand faltered slightly over the screen. He hesitated a moment before dropping his hand onto the table top and turning to look at me. "You never did explain how you did that trick. Or how they changed back after you left."

"Yes I did," I insisted. "Magic, Dr. Banner!"

"No such thing," Tony immediately dismissed with a shake of his head. "Everything can be explained one way or another. Magic tricks are just that- tricks. They're illusions."

"Not my magic," I defended. "My magic is genuine. None of that tomfoolery crap those hacks on YouTube do. Like this." I reached behind Tony's ear and produced a quarter, holding it between my middle and forefinger as I twisted it in a small circle in front of his face. "See? Magic."

"Trick."

"Magic!"

"Trick!"

"Guys," Bruce groaned.

I whipped around to point a finger at Bruce, bouncing slightly on my feet. "Tell him, Umbruce! My magic is legit." When Bruce sputtered nonsense and held his hands up in a shrug, I groaned and twirled in a circle before dropping dramatically onto the nearest table, holding the quarter above my face to glare at it with a pout. "How do I convince them?" I half-asked the quarter, and half-asked myself.

An idea struck, and I pushed myself away from the table while holding the quarter out in front of me. "Look at this quarter," I instructed. When neither of the two men looked at it, I scurried forward and grabbed Bruce's hand, shoving the coin into his palm. "Look!"

Bruce sighed and took the quarter, holding it between his fingers. Once Bruce was involved, Tony became more interested and stepped closer to watch what I was doing. I looked between the two of them to make sure their attention was on the coin before sliding one of my hands under Bruce's and the other one over it to hide the quarter. When I removed my top hand, the quarter was gone. "Ta-da!" I shouted, pulling my hands back to clap them excitedly.

Bruce knit his eyebrows and turned his hand over, as if somehow it might have ended up on the other side. Tony raised his eyebrows slightly before pursing his lips and shaking his head. "Still don't believe it."

"Of course you don't. But if the magic wasn't real, how did I get the quarter up there?"

Tony glanced up when I pointed my finger towards the ceiling, where the quarter was being held up by a clear piece of tape. "That... Okay, I'm confused."

"Explain that with your silly science," I challenged, crossing my arms defiantly over my chest as I grinned widely. "Want more convincing? I can do more. I can do this all day." When Tony didn't answer, still staring at the quarter on the ceiling with confusion, I turned to Bruce. "What about you? Have I converted you yet?"

Bruce chuckled, looking away from the coin to grab his glasses from the top of his head and twist them between his fingers again. "I still don't know how you do that. And not with magic," he interrupted, causing me to close my mouth before I could retort. "I mean really. Have you always done things like that? Did you develop it later? Does anyone else in your family do that? Have you ever tried to figure out where these powers came from?"

"What am I, a science experiment?" I joked, shoving his shoulder playfully. "Yes, I've always been able to do that. No, nobody else in my family could do this. According to SHIELD, the technical term is 'reality warping'," I answered, putting finger quotes around reality warping.

Bruce mumbled the term to himself as his eyes took on a far-away look, and I figured he was trying to put a scientific explanation for the phenomenon together in his head. Meanwhile, Tony had finally looked down from the ceiling with a little smile. "Do something else."

"Why?" I smirked. "Are you impressed?"

Tony scoffed at that, shaking his head furiously. "Umm, _no_. Obviously not. But it's common knowledge that when conducting an experiment, you have to collect multiple results to make sure you get the same result every time. So... do another trick."

I laughed quietly to myself as I thought about what else to do, absentmindedly taking Bruce's glasses out of his hands and slipping them onto my own face as I stroked my chin, dragging my fingers down an imaginary beard. "Um, I need those," Bruce pointed out, motioning towards the glasses on my face.

"But they look so good on me," I countered, tapping the back of the stems to bounce them up and down against the bridge of my nose.

Bruce simply knit his eyebrows and chuckled under his breath, glancing at the computer monitor when it beeped. Something must have caught his attention, because he easily gave up the fight for his glasses and moved across the lab to pick up what looked like a fancy metal detector that he started waving over Loki's scepter. "Whatcha got?" Tony asked, leaning to his right to look over my shoulder at Bruce.

"Well, the gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports of the Tesseract. But at this rate, it would take weeks to process."

Tony moved from standing in front of me to another computer that had been set up to the left of where Bruce was standing. "If we bypass the mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster we can clock this at around 600 teraflops."

"All I packed was a toothbrush," Bruce chuckled.

"Teraflops?" I asked, scrunching my nose. "That's not a real word."

"Teraflops are as real as magic."

"So you admit I have magic!" I announced, throwing my hands triumphantly in the air. "I converted you! Oh, I am so _cool_."

"Don't flatter yourself," Tony commented off-handedly as he picked up what looked like a slim silver pen and left his computer, pointing it towards Bruce. "You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's Candy Land."

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of... broke Harlem."

"Ah, the past is the past." I pulled off Bruce's glasses and handed them back to him with a smile, shrugging when he furrowed his eyebrows. "Move on, Brucie. That was years ago. You seem like a chill guy these days."

"Exactly," Tony nodded, rounding the desk to stand on Bruce's left. "Like she says. Move on. Go with the flow. Go with the flow all the way to Stark Tower, where I promise a stress-free environment. No tension, no surprises..."

Bruce jumped and let out a small, "Ow!" when Tony zapped him with what I realized wasn't actually just a pen.

Tony narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to Bruce, studying his reaction as the door whirred open and I watched as Steve marched into the room shouting, "Hey!"

"Nothing?" Tony asked, sounding disappointed.

"Are you nuts?"

"Jury's out. You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret- mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"

"You should try E," I suggested. Tony's eyebrows shot up to his hairline, and Bruce tilted his head with a withering expression, so I held my hands defensively in front of myself. "Not that I'm condoning drug use! Give hugs, not drugs. Who wants a hug?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked, though it was directed more towards Tony than myself judging by the annoyed look he was shooting the man.

"Funny things are."

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, Doc."

Bruce shook his head, tapping away at a laptop that had appeared sometime when I wasn't looking. "It's all right. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."

Tony clicked his tongue and circled the metal desk, wagging his finger at Bruce. "You're tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark."

I backed away from the two men as Tony grabbed a silver package and stepped slowly closer towards Steve, wanting to stay out of this argument as much as possible. I was a lover, not a fighter. Well, I was more of a joker than a lover. Same difference, right?

"Do you think I'm not? Why did Fury call us in? Why now, why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"You think Fury's hiding something?"

"He's a spy," Tony explained, ripping the package open and pouring a handful of blueberries into his palm. "Captain, he's _the_ spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging him too, isn't it?" he said, smacking Bruce's shoulder. When did they have the time to discuss Fury? Did I tune that part out?

Bruce looked back and forth between Steve and Tony, pulling his glasses off and twirling them around, which seemed to be a frequent habit for him, while he waved his hands in loose circles over his laptop. "Uh, I just wanna finish my work here, and..."

"Doctor?" Steve interrupted, nodding once to encourage him.

Bruce let out a small puff of air, tapping the table a few times. "A warm light for all mankind. Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."

"I heard it."

"Well, I think that was meant for you." Bruce pointed at Tony, who pursed his lips before offering the package. Bruce pulled out a few blueberries and bounced them in his cupped palm as he continued. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."

"Stark Tower?" Steve clarified as Tony passed behind Bruce to offer the same bag of fruit to me. "That big, ugly..." Tony raised one eyebrow as he turned to Steve, daring him with his expression to finish that sentence, and Steve rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. "...building in New York?"

I pulled my hand out of the bag, but instead of blueberries there were chocolate chips sitting in my palm. Tony knit his eyebrows at the treats in my hand before glancing inside his bag, but instead of questioning it, grabbed three of the chocolate chips out of my hand and tossed them into his mouth. I held my hand out to Bruce, who had eaten his blueberries while Steve was talking, and he smiled his thanks after taking some of the chocolate before I downed the rest.

"It's powered by an arc reactor," Bruce continued explaining after swallowing the candy. "A self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?"

"It's just the prototype," he said to Bruce before turning to Steve. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."

"So," Bruce drawled, finishing his explanation with a wave of his hand. "Why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

Tony finished his second rotation around the table by walking away from me, behind Bruce again and right by Steve to stand in front of one of the multiple functioning monitors in the room. "I should probably look into that once my decryption program finished breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files."

"I'm sorry, did you say-"

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge," Tony cut off Steve, glancing down at his phone. "In a few hours I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide." He held the silver package out towards Steve. "Blueberry? Or chocolate, if you ask Alice nicely."

Steve ignored the offer, adopting an annoyed expression as he straightened his back and looked down at Tony. "Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around."

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome."

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them."

"Following's not really my style," Tony shook his head, popping another handful of blueberries into his mouth.

"And you're all about style, aren't you?"

Tony chewed his snack quietly before holding his hand up to tick off two of his fingers. "Of the people in this room, which one is A, wearing a spangly outfit, and B, not of use?"

"Well, technically I'm not of any real use," I suggested, shrugging my shoulders with my palms upward.

"You're entertainment," Tony dismissed.

"Steve," Bruce added, leaning forward onto the desk. "Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you."

Steve took a moment to look at each of the rest of us in the room before telling Tony to, "Just find the Cube," and marching out of the room.

Things were silent after the door closed behind Steve, the air filled with an awkward tension. The first sound after he left was the quarter falling from the ceiling, clanging against the floor as it spun on its side a few times before landing on tails. "Uh-oh," I said quietly, leaning over to pick it up and show the tails side to Bruce and Tony. "Bad luck."


	8. Exposed Nerve

**Exposed Nerve**

I tossed the quarter into the air and caught it back in that same hand before sliding it into my pocket. "Well, I was never really one for believing in luck," I commented on the bad luck of a coin landing on tails.

Tony shook his head and pointed towards the doorway as he moved about the lab, dragging his fingers over different screens on his way. "That's the guy my dad never shut up about? I'm wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

"Huh," Bruce chuckled once. "Well, the guy's not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us."

"What he's _got_ is an ACME dynamite kit. It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm gonna be there when it does."

"I could probably pull that off," I offered half-jokingly, shrugging one shoulder as I switched back and forth between looking over Bruce's shoulder and staring at Loki's scepter. "I've never tried cartoon tricks before. Might be an adventure."

Bruce peeked at me one of the times I was looking at his shoulder before turning to Tony and eventually back to his computer. "Yeah. I'll read all about it."

"Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us," Tony suggested.

"No." Bruce shook his head, dragging one finger from the bottom to the top of his screen. "No, see, I don't get a suit of armor. I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

I moved to stand on the other side of Bruce's screen and minimized what he was working on so that he could see me through the glass. "You know, Dr. B, you remind me of my niece. Smart, cute, and whiny as hell. I mean, she's three, so she kind of gets away with that last part. You can't keep hiding from situations you aren't sure are going to pan out. When I went up against Barton, I had no idea what was going to happen. But you know what? I jumped off that roof anyway."

"And got yourself hurt in the process." He pointed towards the white bandage wrapped around my forearm, partially hidden by the half-rolled up sleeve.

"That's not her point," Tony pitched in, leaning back against the desk and crossing his arms and ankles. "Her point is that at least she tried, and it's about time you manned up and tried something new too."

"It's different," Bruce tried again, switching back and forth between looking at me and Tony. " _You_ can control your suit, and _you_ can control your changes. I can't control myself when I'm like that."

"You know, I read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you."

"So you're saying that the Hulk..." Bruce stopped himself, wiping at the edge of his mouth before looking back up at us. "The Other Guy... he saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for... what?

"I guess we'll find out."

Bruce glanced at Tony before shaking his head and bringing his work back up. "You may not enjoy that."

"Then again," I shrugged. "We just might. And if we're lucky..." I reproduced the quarter from my pocket and picked up Bruce's hand to lay it heads up on his palm, smiling when he started to fiddle with it. "You might enjoy it too."

"I thought you didn't believe in luck?"

"I've been known to change my mind," I laughed. "Though not too often. I'm usually very stubborn, so you should be feeling very special right about now."

"Speaking of stubborn," Tony added loudly, cutting into what had previously been a quiet moment between Bruce and I. "SHIELD's firewalls have improved since the last time I hacked into them. I don't like when they learn things." He adopted an excited expression and turned to face me, halting his hands over the monitor. "Could you change it so that they have no firewalls?"

"Mmm... probably not," I admitted. "I've never tried anything with electronics before. I would more likely blow up your computer than successfully break into SHIELD's files."

Tony mumbled something about "useless" and "no fun" as he returned to working on the computer. "No matter. I'll only take another thirty seconds or so anyway. I just really hate waiting."

At that moment, the lab door slid open as Fury marched in, eyes trained on Tony. "Mr. Stark, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you."

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are," Bruce answered, causing Fury to look at him while Tony pointed in his direction. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"And then you can get your Cube back," Tony concluded, turning back to his computer when it beeped. "No muss, no fuss... What is Phase 2?"

All of us turned to look at Steve when he came in with a giant gun and dropped it with a loud _bang_ on the nearest table. "Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the Cube to make weapons. Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me."

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract, this does not mean that we're making-"

"I'm sorry, Nick!" Tony shouted, cutting Fury off and flipping the screen around to display what looked like schematics for weapons. "What were you lying?"

"Nobody ever said anything to me about weapons." I crossed my arms over my chest, knitting my eyebrows at Fury. "Do you lie to everyone you recruit, or am I a special case?"

"Oh, it's definitely not just you," Tony answered for Fury.

"I was wrong, Director." Steve stepped away from the gun just as Natasha walked in with Thor. "The world hasn't changed a bit."

When Bruce noticed that Natasha had walked in, he used the glasses in his hand to point towards the screen displaying the blueprints. "Did you know about this?"

"You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?"

"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed."

"Loki is manipulating you," she tried again, stepping sideways and closer to Fury. For some reason, watching her glare at Bruce as she neared the Director sent little hot flares of anger down my spine.

"And you've been doing what, exactly?"

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little _twitchy_." Bruce grabbed the screen, pointing at it to draw all of our attention towards the giant gun displayed on it. "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

Fury kept his narrowed eyes trained on Bruce while he motioned towards Thor. "Because of him."

Thor furrowed his eyebrows and pointed towards his own chest. "Me?"

Seeing that none of us had any idea what he was talking about, Fury took it upon himself to lock his arms behind his back and twirl in a slow circle to address all of us as he explained. "Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but that we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned."

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor insisted.

"But you're not the only people out there," Fury countered. "Are you? _And_ you're not the only threat. The world is filling up with people who can't be matched. That can't be controlled."

"Like you controlled the Cube?" Steve asked, and Fury scoffed.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to the other realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"We don't want _any_ form of war," I disagreed, but was cut off by Fury, who was only the first of people to continue interrupting as everyone began to talk over each other.

"You forced our hand. We had to come up with something!"

"A nuclear deterrent," Tony offered. "Because that always calms everything right down."

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark."

"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep in-"

"Wait, wait, wait- _hold on._ How is this now about me?"

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?"

"I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor commented as Steve and Tony stepped closer to each other, glaring as they stood chest-to-chest.

Fury turned to look at Thor as he leaned backwards, a look of disbelief covering his features. " _Excuse me_ , did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?"

"You treat your champions with such mistrust!"

"Are you really all that naive?" Natasha questioned. "SHIELD monitors potential threats."

"Captain America is on threat watch?" Bruce scoffed, moving around the desk to stand in the circle that had formed amidst all the arguing.

" _I'm_ on threat watch?" I asked, holding a hand to my chest. "I do card tricks!"

"We _all_ are," Natasha answered with a nod.

As more time passed, the disagreements became louder and more aggressive with each of us arguing one point or another. Steve and Tony stood toe-to-toe, arguing about respect. Fury and Thor argued over who had the right to power. Natasha looked as if she couldn't believe we were debating any of this at all. Bruce shook his head when Fury grabbed Thor's arm and called out, "Yeah, manhandle him, that'll help."

I could feel my face flushing as my frustration grew with the group, all of them ignoring my attempts to shut them up. "I would call you all children, but I have better luck getting kids to cooperate than I do with any one of you idiots."

"You speak of control, yet you court chaos."

"That's his M.O., isn't it?" Bruce asked Thor, waving his hand towards Fury as the group quieted down to listen to him. "I mean what are we, a team? No, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're a time bomb."

"You need to step away," Fury commanded, closing in on Bruce.

"Oh, god," I groaned, shaking my head. "Just leave him the hell alone for once."

"Excuse me?" Fury's eyebrows shot up to his hairline as he turned to face me, and I raised my hands up by my side before slapping them down against my thighs.

"You heard me, Mad-Eye Moody. Get off everyone's asses."

"Yeah, why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?"

"You know damn well why!" Steve slapped Tony's hand off his shoulder when he laid it there, causing him to return to glaring at him. "Back off."

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."

"Yeah, big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist."

Steve, obviously unimpressed with Tony's joke, lowered his voice to a husky whisper and stepped even closer. "I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire."

Steve smirked, shaking his head. "Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero?" Tony poked Steve's chest, which only made the Captain visibly angrier as he clenched his fists. "Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a _bottle_."

"Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds."

Everyone turned to Thor when he started laughing, and he looked at each of us with a grin that made me want to punch his stupid, ridiculously handsome face. "You people are so petty... and _tiny._ "

"Yeah, this is a team."

"Agent Romanoff," Fury motioned from Natasha to Bruce. "Would you escort Dr. Banner back to his-"

"Where?" Bruce held his arms out by his sides. "You rented out my room!"

"The cell was just in case-"

"In case you needed to kill me, but you _can't_. I know, I _tried._ "

The entire atmosphere in the room took a sudden drop from heating anger to chilling realization at Bruce's words. My mouth opened slightly as if I was going to say something, but I had no idea what to say to that.

Bruce looked at all of our reactions, and knowing he wasn't going to simply brush a statement like that off, he sighed before explaining. "I got low. I didn't see an end. So, I put a bullet in my mouth and the Other Guy _spit it out_... So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good. Until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk. You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff, you want to know how I stay calm?"

As Bruce's tone grew darker, I watched as he reached back and wrapped his hand around the scepter. I wasn't the only one to notice, seeing as everyone seemed to take the smallest step back as Fury and Natasha put their hands on their guns.

"Bruce," I almost whispered, saying his real name out loud for the first time. When he turned to look at me, I glanced at the scepter in his hand before returning my eyes to his. "Put the scepter back."

At the same time that he looked down at the scepter with confusion, as if he hadn't even realized he was holding it, the computer across the room started beeping incessantly and he dropped it back onto the table. "Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my party trick after all."

"You located the Tesseract?" Fury asked, which launched the boys into yet another pissing contest over who could get to it the quickest, or who was worthy enough to retrieve it.

"Just shut up!" I growled with annoyance as Steve and Tony went back and forth about hitting an old man and putting on the suit. " _God_ , and I thought Bruce was whiny."

"Oh my god," Bruce breathed, and I turned back to face him with a huff.

"We've already been over this Bruce, you whine even more than my-"

 _Boom._


	9. Seven Of Spades

**Seven Of Spades**

I blinked my bleary eyes, holding the side of my head while I tried to overcome the wave of vertigo that followed the explosion. The communicator Natasha had demanded I wear after jumping ship in Germany crackled in my ear, and I tapped my finger against it a few times to clear the static. Somewhere behind me I could hear pained moans and strained pants. When I looked back over my shoulder, I saw that Bruce was clutching his hands into fists that he had pressed against the top of his skull while Natasha was trying to pull her leg out from under a fallen steam pipe.

"We're okay," she responded when Fury called her name over the comms and glanced back at Bruce. "We're okay, right? Doctor?"

Bruce pounded his fist against the metal floor with a loud groan, and my breath caught in my throat when I realized what was happening. "Oh no," I breathed, slowly pushing myself up to my knees and crawling towards Natasha with my eyes trained on Bruce.

When she noticed I was coming closer, Natasha tried to wave me away before collapsing back onto her hands. I ignored her warning and continued making my way over while she tried to talk Bruce down. "Bruce, you got to fight it. This is just what Loki wants. We're going to be okay, just listen to me. We're going to be okay."

I tried to push the pipe off her leg when I got close enough, but the subtle shift was enough to cause a high-pitched screech against the floor that made Bruce twitch violently as a growl bubbled up through his throat and an involuntary shudder ran down my spine. After taking a calming breath, I pressed one finger to Natasha's mouth to signal that maybe she should shut up now before returning my hands to the steam pipe.

Obviously I wasn't going to be able to just push it off her, meaning the only other option I had at my disposal was finding some way to alter it. It seems today is just a day for trying new things.

Trying my best to ignore Bruce's increasingly angry sounding fit behind me, I ran my hands along the pipe and honed in on the metal it was constructed of, changing it to the first thing that came to mind. Seconds later, the smooth metal under my fingertips was replaced by rough styrofoam, and I easily lifted the lightweight material before encouraging Natasha to remove herself from the position she was in with a nod.

Once she was free we both turned our heads to the sound of Bruce crashing onto a lower level of the maintenance room we were in, followed by the ripping fabric of his clothes. "Time to go," I muttered, snatching Natasha's hand and pulling her in the opposite direction.

An ear-splitting scream that I could feel vibrating in my bones caused me to falter in my footsteps as sheer terror gripped at me, but Natasha kept up the pace and pulled me along with her. I couldn't remember a time I had felt so scared, and I sincerely doubted I would ever be so terrified again.

The Hulk's thundering footsteps shook the steps of the staircase Natasha and I were climbing, and before either of us made it to the top, he had grabbed onto the bright yellow sidebars and pried it away from the pathway it connected to. Thanks to her expert training, Natasha was able to leap off the falling steps and swing up onto the railing of the upper deck.

Me, not so much.

I went flying along with the stairs when the Hulk tossed them to the side, colliding with a collection of metal boxes that were even bigger than me. The Hulk huffed heavily as he glared at me before turning back to Natasha. I only had to take one look at her to get the message that she was going to make a run for it, and followed in her lead by sprinting in the opposite direction.

The room I ran into had a group of men dressed in black tactical gear facing the opposite direction, but as soon as I came in, they all turned to face me. Based on looks alone I might have guessed that they were SHIELD agents if it weren't for two dead giveaways- the eerie blue eyes, and the fact that Clint Barton was standing at the center of the group.

"Oh, you are _kidding_ me."

Clint shooed the other men away, and they separated into three smaller groups before taking off in different directions, leaving only the two of us in the small room. I half-expected him to make some witty remark on this being his second chance to take me out, or finishing what he started. Instead, he immediately went for his bow.

Having learned my lesson back in Germany, I knew that if this was going to happen, I was going to have to be on the defense. So when he pulled an arrow from its holster and pointed it in my direction, I dodged to the left and ran straight for the wall. Having spoken with Tony earlier about messing around with cartoons, I had a bit of an idea on the fighting style I was going to test here.

As soon as I reached the wall, I pressed my foot against it and lifted myself off the floor. I had to resist the urge to break out into laughter when my trick worked and I ran vertically along the wall and up to the ceiling. When I reached the break between wall and ceiling, I leaned backwards and waved my hand towards a very frustrated looking Clint.

"I'm not playing games with you again," he warned, pulling the arrow back in its string.

"Really?" When he released the arrow, I dropped from the wall back to the floor and landed in a crouch. "I don't think you have much of a choice here, Barton. Unless you plan on surrendering, but you don't-" I rolled to my left when he shot another arrow that came just a _bit_ too close to hitting me right between the eyes for comfort "-really seem the type."

"Stop moving."

"Yeah, like that'll-"

He dropped the bow and rushed me just as I stood, shoving me back into the wall. " _Stop moving._ "

I frantically slapped the arm he was forcing against my windpipe, cutting off my air supply, before clawing at it and trying to shove it away. When none of that worked, I used the hand that wasn't trying to keep Clint from killing me into my back pocket and pulled an egg out. Clint's eyes flicked to the random item just before I smashed it against his forehead and a white dove appeared, flapping its wings and cawing loudly.

Clint stumbled back at the sudden attack on his face, and I clutched at my throat taking deep, panting breaths while I circled around him to where he had left his bow on the ground. I swept the weapon up into my own hands, holding it more like a baseball bat than a bow. When he managed to push the bird away from himself and turned back to face me I swung the bow in a wide arc, slamming it into the side of Clint's head and knocking him to the floor.

I threw his bow to the ground as if I was a football player who had just made a touchdown before pointing at Clint sprawled on the ground. "That's for Germany, jackass!"

He didn't stand back up, which I was more than grateful for as the adrenaline slowly seeped out of my body and I dropped into a sitting position on the floor. If I ever had to fight Clint Barton again, there was a distinct possibility of me simply dropping dead.

As I stared at Clint lying motionless on the floor, unwilling to take my eyes off him for fear of him springing back up and launching a counter-attack, the dove flew in front of me and landed on my knee, tilting its head to the side.

I smiled down at the small white bird, holding a bent finger out and brushing its plush feathers. "Hey, birdy. I'm gonna call you... Little Asskicker. Lala for short. Sound good?" Lala cooed as it shook its feathers out, and I nodded as if it had granted me approval. "Wonderful."

"Phil Coulson is down." My smile dropped at Fury's statement, and my hand stilled over Lala's back. Another voice offered to send a medical team, but he said that they were already there. "They called it."

I waited for him to say something, anything else. When he didn't, I sighed and pressed my hand against the comm device to make sure they could hear me. "I have Agent Barton unconscious in..." I glanced up at the plaque by the door "Bay Entrance 3."

"We'll send a med unit your way," Fury offered. "Everyone else, meet at the bridge as soon as possible."

With that taken care of, I took one more look at Clint before standing up. Lala fluttered her wings and hopped off my leg as I stood, flying away and darting out of the room. I was too tired to bother following her, so instead I pulled the deck of cards out of my back pocket and flipped the top open before dumping the lot into my hand. After sifting through them, I managed to find the one I was looking for.

"Seven of Spades," I mumbled to myself, flipping it over to see all sides of it. It was the card Coulson had picked out of the deck when I first met him. It was an irrelevant card, overall. It wasn't anything symbolic, like the King of Hearts or Ace of Diamonds. It was just the Seven of Spades.

I slid the card back into its deck, which I then also returned to my pocket as a group of SHIELD agents dressed in white medical garb rushed into the room and lifted Clint onto a stretcher before hurrying him out of the room. "Excuse me," one of the women stopped by my side. "Do you need any assistance?"

I pursed my lips together before shrugging. "Can you show me how to get back to the bridge from here?"


	10. Protective

**Protective**

When I arrived back at the bridge, I saw Fury standing in front of the large glass table with Steve and Tony sitting on either side of it. I looked around the room, but nobody else other than a few stray SHIELD agents were in the room. I wanted to ask where everyone else had gone, but a part of me was too scared to know. Without asking, I sat back against the railing behind Fury with my arms crossed.

He pulled a few cards out of his jacket and slapped them against his hand a few times before tossing them onto the table in front of Steve. "These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. I guess he never did get you to sign them." As Steve picked up one of the cards and stared blankly at it, Fury sighed and took a small step back so that the three of us were in his field of vision. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, the location of the Cube, Banner, Thor..."

At the answer to my unasked question, I sighed through my nose and pulled my arms tighter against my chest while Fury continued. "I got nothing for you. I lost my one good eye... Maybe I had that coming. Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes."

Tony pushed himself out of his chair, standing there with a faintly confused expression before walking silently out of the room. Fury walked around the table and patted the back of the abandoned seat before crossing his arms behind his back. "Well. It's an old-fashioned notion."

Steve followed Tony's lead by pushing away from his chair and exiting through the same corridor. I might have followed if I wasn't so busy thinking. I was so busy, in fact, that I didn't even notice Fury joining me against the railing until he spoke up. "You seem the least disappointed in me at the moment."

"I'm plenty disappointed," I scoffed, watching my foot as I kicked it lightly against the textured metal floor. "I just try not to focus on the negative."

"What are you focused on right now, then?"

I had to think on that for a moment. There were plenty of things to think about, none of them exactly positive. "I was telling Bruce back in the lab that he reminds me of my niece," I semi-answered.

"Whiny, I think you called him." I chuckled at Fury's dry humor and nodded.

"That too. That's not what I was thinking about, though." I glanced up at Fury and saw that he was watching me with an expectant look, waiting for me to continue. "Cass was born with a congenital heart defect," I explained, returning my gaze to my feet. "She's still young, so it isn't really a huge problem for her yet, but... It makes her different. We all- her parents and I- we have to make sure she doesn't exert herself too much or things could go south pretty fast. The way Bruce treats his... _condition_. How careful he is. That's what really reminds me of her. Maybe that's why I want to protect him so much. Although," a small half-smile tugged up at the corner of my lips, "Cass is anything but careful. It drives her parents crazy, the way they have to keep her in check to make sure she doesn't hurt herself. I don't know. Maybe they aren't so alike after all."

Fury was quiet as he considered what I'd said. I almost thought that the conversation was over, but just as I was considering leaving he said something else. "He just might need you to protect him someday." When I looked back up to him, I saw that an almost undetectable smirk had settled on his face as he nodded towards the hallway Steve and Tony had disappeared down. "You should probably check on Stark and Rogers. I'm not sure I trust the two of them alone together for long."

With that, he turned and walked down the steps to speak with Agent Hill and various other scattered agents. I sighed before shoving off the rail and heading towards where Fury had directed me. I didn't get very far in, however. Only a few steps down the hallway I ran into Tony and Steve hurrying back from the detention center when they had been keeping Loki. "Woah, where are you two off to?"

"Stark Tower," Steve explained without really explaining anything at all.

"Wait, what? Why?" I asked, pulling a 180 degree turn to star following back down the hall after them.

"He's touching my stuff!" Tony pouted before rounding the corner, headed for the room he kept his Iron man suit in. " _Nobody_ touches my stuff."

Well, that cleared up absolutely nothing. I turned to Steve when Tony separated from us, raising a questioning eyebrow. "Loki," he clarified. "Long story short, Loki is at Stark Tower and we're going after him."

"I have no idea how you two figured that out, but... okay. I can get on board with this. So, what's the plan here?" Steve glanced down at me, and I didn't exactly like the look on his face. "We don't have a plan, do we?"

"There's a plan." He nodded, turning his eyes front. "I'm just... not exactly sure what that plan is."

While that certainly boosted my confidence- sarcasm intended- I was still left with no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I didn't even know where I was following Steve to until we passed under a sign that read 'Medical Bay'. There were four metal doors, and he pointed towards the second one on the right to signal that this was our destination before pushing the button to open the door.

It hissed open, and from my spot looking over Steve's left shoulder I saw Natasha standing next to an empty bed. Steve did a quick sweep of the room before returning his eyes to her. "Time to go."

"Go where?"

"I'll tell you on the way. Can you fly one of those jets?"

Another door at the back of the room was pulled open, and I turned to see Clint tossing a rag onto a sink before walking out. "I can."

While I was staring at the bruise on Clint's right temple that was already turning purple at the edges, Steve turned to Natasha. When she nodded, he copied the action before facing Clint. "You got a suit?"

"Yeah."

"Then suit up." Steve looked down to me and patted my shoulder before turning on his heel to go back the way we had come. I followed him for a few steps, but then a thought occurred that made me backtrack so I was looking at Clint again. Tapping my temple, I half-smiled. "Sorry about that, buddy, but you were being kind of an asshole at the time."

Natasha smirked and brought the back of her hand up to her lips while Clint simply shrugged. "I don't blame you."

"And I don't blame you." I winked with a growing smile to show my sincerity. "Glad you're back on our side." With what I felt needed to be said out of the way, I went back to following after Steve, though I did have to rush a bit to catch up.

* * *

 **Hey guys! We're just about finished with the story now, with only 3-4 chapters left. There will be a little bit of story after the end of the Avengers movie, just to wrap some things up. I'll also be posting a sequel, but I'll talk more about that later.**

 **I'm going out of town for a few days and will have little to no internet, meaning I won't be able to update. I'll write as much as possible while I'm gone, though, so hopefully I'll be able to continue posting as soon as I'm back.**


	11. Round One

**Round One**

It was a short flight from the helicarrier to Manhattan, but not short enough. By the time we got there the portal was already open with aliens weaving between buildings and terrifying the scrambling citizens. "Stark, we're on your three headed northeast," Natasha's voice echoed from in front of me and over the comms.

 _"_ _What, did you stop for drive-thru? Swing up Park. I'm gonna lay 'em out for you."_

Clint turned the jet to follow Tony's instructions while Natasha released the guns from underneath us. "Is this a bad time to mention that I am completely unprepared to be in a battle?" Natasha and Steve both looked back at me with annoyed looks. "I have really bad timing, okay? Shoot me."

"Rogers," Natasha said, his name somehow conveying her intentions.

Steve moved from one side of the jet to the other while Natasha returned her focus to shooting down the aliens that were trailing after Tony. "This is a bad idea," he sighed while pulling a pistol out of a compartment built into the wall. "Do you even know how to use a gun?"

"I'm a fast learner."

There was no room for argument as we were hit by something I didn't see, fire spreading over the roof while a dozen alarms started blaring from the front console. I tightened my grip on the gun Steve had given me as I stumbled back into the wall. Clint managed to maneuver us in between two buildings to avoid more damage, bringing us over a mostly empty parking lot before we crashed into the concrete.

While I was clinging to the wall to keep myself on my feet, Natasha and Clint were already unbuckling themselves from their seats and opening the hatch to leave the jet. Steve pulled his helmet down over his face and picked up his shield before turning to me. "Look, if you don't think you can handle this, then just stay down and away from the fire."

"No, I can do this." I pushed myself away from the wall, nodding with what I hoped looked like confidence. "They're just freaky, flying aliens trying to kill us all and take over the world. No big deal."

Steve didn't look convinced, but the threat at hand must have seemed more important than convincing me to stay safe because he just copied my nod before following Clint and Natasha outside. I can do this. I mean sure, I have very little fighting experience, no idea how to defeat these invaders, and somewhat unstable powers, but what I _did_ have was determination. That counts for something, right? Sure it does.

I followed after the others, looking to the sky as screaming people ran in the opposite direction of us to escape the barrage of destruction. "We've got to get up there," Steve said, pointing towards Stark Tower. Just as he was lowering his hand a throaty rumble broke out of the portal, followed by a giant, slithering… thing.

We all watched with matching expressions of disbelief as the alien soared over our heads while more of the Chitauri rappelled out of it, landing on the buildings and sliding down. Steve was the first person to speak, keeping his eyes on the alien as it turned a corner and disappeared from sight. "Stark, you seeing this?"

 _"_ _Seeing. Still working on believing. Where's Banner, has he shown up yet?_ "

"Banner?" Steve finally dropped his eyes from the sky to stare at the surrounding horde.

 _"_ _Just keep me posted."_

"So what do we do now?" Steve, Clint and Natasha all turned to me, and I gestured around at the multiple explosions and groups of terrified people running from the aliens that were raining from the sky. "Where do we even start?"

All of us looked to each other, expecting somebody else to have the answer. When it became clear that none of us had a clue what we were supposed to do, Clint spoke up. "There are still citizens trapped around here. We should focus on them."

"I'll take care of that," Steve offered, taking over as the leader of our small group. "Natasha, you keep the Chitauri back while I make sure everyone gets somewhere safe. Clint, you take the high ground. Get in a building, on top of a car, it doesn't matter. Just make sure you keep them pinned down. Alice-"

He was cut off by a cluster of Chitauri on what looked like flying jet skis zooming over our heads, firing randomly at the ground. We all scattered to find cover as they shot down at us with bits of buildings and cars showering the streets. In the middle of the group I spotted a green cape.

I reacted just as I had back in Germany- without thinking. I shoved my gun into the waistband of my pants before running to the nearest car that wasn't completely demolished and using it as a springboard, jumping up and grabbing onto the bottom of the hovercraft. In an instant I was gripping onto a metal bar for dear life with the wind whipping past me while I climbed upwards.

 _"_ _Are you out of your mind?!_ " Steve yelled through the comms.

The Chitauri noticed me hanging off his hovercraft just as I pulled myself up into the seat. I pulled my pistol out and shoved it against the side of the head before pulling the trigger. Black blood splattered against the side of my face as he slumped to the side, and I cringed while pushing him off the vehicle. "A little bit," I answered Steve, wiping my face off with my sleeve and grabbing onto the handlebars.

 _"_ _Can you fly that thing?"_

I shrugged at Clint's question before realizing he couldn't see me. "Umm…" I looked over the controls, though I was really happy enough with the fact that it hadn't dropped out of the sky yet. "I'm gonna go with yes. Also, their blood is _really gross_. Just a heads up."

After testing my grip on the handlebars, I tested out my flying skills by veering left and right. "Ah, _dammit._ Inverted controls. I hate that." Other than the annoying way the controls were set up, piloting the vehicle wasn't too difficult. Once I was comfortable with the hovercraft, I refocused my attention on the other Chitauri ahead of me. Okay, weapons. There was a red button on the right handlebar, which was either going to be a brake or a trigger. Only one way to find out.

Blue bullets shot forward, hitting the vehicle directly in front of me and knocking it out of the sky. Trigger, yay! Man, fighting is super easy. I don't know why Steve was so worried.

As I rounded a building I came face to face with another horde of Chitauri that looked none too happy that I had hijacked one of their hovercrafts. _Right._ They fight back.

I pulled a hard left when they started shooting at me, circling around behind them and returned fire, managing to take out another three before they were following me again. My main focus was on Loki, however, so I continued to dodge their attacks as I went back to following after the man in green. He had at least six Chitauri surrounding him, so I would have to take them out before I could get to him.

Unfortunately, I was only able to kill two of them before he noticed he was being tailed. He booked a right while I followed after, circling back to where I had first started following him. When I managed to catch back up to him, I saw that he had turned around and was facing me. _Oh no_.

I only saw his smug little smirk for half a second before he blasted me out of the sky with his scepter, my vehicle spiraling out of control. The explosion was small, but enough to knock me sideways until I was dangling from the side of the hovercraft with my arms screaming in protest at the strain of holding on. "This is bad! Bad, bad, bad!"

 _"_ _What's going on?"_

I didn't have the chance to answer Tony as I abandoned the hovercraft before it could crash into the side of a building, leaving me freefalling straight towards the debris filled street. My arms were flailing by my sides while my screams were swallowed by the rushing wind, my head filled with the thought that this was it. Before I could hit the ground, however, I was intercepted and started flying sideways. I didn't immediately see what had stopped me, but whatever it was I was clinging to it in an instant.

I didn't realize that it was Thor who had saved me until we landed safely on the street where Steve, Natasha and Clint had regrouped. The minute Thor set me down, I wobbled over to a large piece of rubble to lean against for support as I gripped my stomach and focused on not vomiting. "Are you okay?" Natasha asked.

I was covered in black alien goo, every part of me was sore, and there was still a raging invasion all around me. "Peachy," I sighed, standing up with a deep breath.

"What's the word upstairs?" Steve asked Thor.

"The power surrounding the Cube is impenetrable."

 _"_ _Thor's right,"_ Tony said _. "We gotta deal with these guys."_

Natasha looked me over one more time before turning back to the rest of the group. "How do we do this?"

"As a team," Steve answered, without really answering anything at the same time, which sparked a miniature argument over who had dibs on the jerk who caused this whole mess.

"I have unfinished business with Loki."

"Yeah?" Clint scoffed, plucking an arrow out of an alien's head. "Get in line."

"He shot me out of the sky with his magic glowstick!" I added, gesturing exaggeratedly backwards towards my wrecked hovercraft.

"Save it," Steve cut in, looking at all of us. "Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us, and that's what we need. Without him, these things could run wild. "We got Stark up top, and he's gonna need us-"

Steve was interrupted by the rumbling of a motorcycle. We all lined up to watch as Bruce rode in, covered from head to toe in brown dirt and wearing ill-fitting clothing. He cut the engine and stepped off the bike to step in front of us, nodding as he glanced at the destroyed city around us. "So, this all seems horrible."

"Really?" I shrugged. "I thought we were having a grand old time."

Bruce chuckled once at my joke, while Steve shot me a disapproving look before keeping his promise to Tony. "Stark, we got him."

 _"_ _Banner?"_

"Just like you said."

 _"_ _Then tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you."_

Right on cue, Tony appeared from behind a building with another one of those scary-as-all-hell snake aliens closing in behind him. At the sight of it heading towards us, all of us stepped back and gripped our weapons just a little tighter. "I don't see how that's a party," Natasha said, shaking her head.

Bruce glanced back at us before walking deliberately closer to the alien. Steve followed a few steps behind him, calling after him. "Dr. Banner. Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."

"That's my secret, Captain." He glanced back over his shoulder, though he continued to walk forward. "I'm always angry."

His borrowed clothes ripped at the seams as green crept over Bruce's skin, much faster than it had back on the helicarrier. He grew at least four times his normal size as he turned back to the incoming alien, and just as he clenched his fist it crashed into the alien's head. The collision caused rubble to spark out from the ground as the metal screeched across the street.

When its tail lifted up, we realized that it was going to flip over and land on top of us. Clint jumped behind a taxi while Steve pulled Natasha behind his shield, and I ducked behind Thor with my arms covering my head while he used only his hammer as protection.

It broke into multiple pieces as it hit the ground, and when I stood back up I saw that Tony had landed just behind us. We took form once the immediate danger was gone, all moving so that our backs were facing each other as we moved into a circle. The Hulk roared on my right while Natasha reloaded her gun to my left.

I watched the portal as it seemed to grow even larger while at least another dozen of the larger aliens wriggled their way out, hundreds of Chitauri flying out behind them. "Awesome," I mumbled sarcastically. "Time for Round Two."


	12. High Five

**High Five**

"All right, listen up." Steve stepped out in front of us, turning to face us as he pointed to where each of us would be stationed. "Until we can close that portal, our priority is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof. Eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash."

"Wanna give me a lift?"

"Right." Tony slipped his arms under Clint's. "Better clench up, Legolas."

Once they were in the air, Steve continued handing out assignments. "Thor, you got to try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You got the lightning, light the bastards up. Alice-"

"I have an idea," I interrupted, holding my hand up.

Steve sighed, tilting his head. "Your ideas usually end with you getting hurt."

I shrugged, already walking backwards. "This is a good one! Besides, somebody has to keep Loki busy while you figure out how to close the portal."

"That doesn't sound like-"

"Let me know when you have a solution!" I called over my shoulder as I jogged towards Stark Tower. Steve wasn't wrong, really. I did end up getting myself into a lot of trouble with my hastily thought up plans, but they also usually worked! Besides, I _really_ wanted to smack Loki upside the head for blasting me out of the sky earlier.

On my way to the Tower, I ran across a news crew trying to film the destruction. I groaned at their idiocy before running towards them. "Hey, uh-uh." I pushed the camera away from the woman speaking into a microphone. "You need to get inside. It isn't safe out here."

"Who are you?" the woman asked, completely ignoring my warning while the cameraman turned his camera to face me.

"In case you haven't noticed, there's an alien invasion happening right now. This isn't a stunt, or a movie. This is _real,_ which means it's not safe for you. Inside." I gripped her shoulders and started pushing her towards the nearest building, the cameraman following after us.

"You didn't answer-"

"Alice," I cut her off, pulling the door open and pushing her inside. "Nice to meet you. Don't come back out until somebody comes to get you." I turned to the man filming and gestured for him to follow her inside. "You too, Skippy. I don't have time to personally escort all of you inside. I'm a little busy at the moment." Once they were inside, I pointed sternly at the floor. " _Stay._ "

After closing the door and making sure the surrounding area was empty, I returned to my earlier task of hurrying to Stark Tower. It was only a few blocks away, and thanks to Thor, Tony and Clint taking care of the Chitauri in the sky I was able to make it to the Tower relatively easily.

Surprisingly, the front doors to the Tower were unlocked, allowing me to simply walk straight into an abandoned lobby. "Must be my lucky day," I mumbled to myself as I walked up to the elevator doors, stepping inside and looking to the buttons. Apparently I needed a key code to get anywhere above the tenth floor. I tapped my comm to make sure it was still working. "Tony, I need to get to the top floor of your Tower."

" _That is probably the worst place you could be right now. The code is 05078669737."_

I scrambled to hit the numbers as he called them out. "Jeez, think your password's long enough? I'd add another 10 numbers just to be safe."

" _Don't sass me, Criss Angel."_

"You know, I resent that." After typing in the excessively long code, I hit the button to close the elevator doors and waited to reach the floor Loki was on. "I happen to be a very talented, actual magician, and I would appreciate being acknowledged as such."

" _Is this really the time for this conversation?"_ Natasha cut in.

"Probably not," I admitted as I walked into the admittedly impressive living area and saw Loki coming in from the balcony. "Perfect timing!" I called out, clapping my hands together with a large smile. "Just the man I was looking for."

Loki stopped at the sound of my voice and narrowed his eyes at me. "How many times must I tell you lot that I'm not going to stop this war simply because you ask me to?"

"Oh, I'm not going to ask you to stop it." I strolled further into the room, slipping my handy deck of cards out of my pocket and dumping them into my hands while making sure to keep Loki in my line of sight. "The bigger, badder kids will take care of your little pets. I just came up here to show you that you're not as special as you think you are."

"Am I not?" He chuckled, locking his hands behind his back. Cocky bastard.

"Nope." I dropped the small box on the floor, fanning the cards between my hands in front of myself with a casual stance. "See, I do magic too. All these little mind games you've been pulling on people? I'll admit, they're good. But I bet I can do even better." I pulled out a random card before tossing the rest of the deck over my shoulder, the cards fluttering silently to the carpeted floor behind me. "Totally normal card, right?"

"I don't know what you think-"

"Right!" I answered for him, cutting off his question and flipping the card back and forth between my fingers. "Just the Three of Diamonds, nothing special about it." Just as it passed under my pinky, I held my hands out in front of me to show that the card had disappeared. Loki looked thoroughly unimpressed, but I offered a bow anyway. "Tada! Fascinating stuff. Want to see something even cooler?"

"I think I've seen enough," Loki refused, dropping his hands back down by his sides. By his shift in stance I knew that he was about to go on the offensive, but I wasn't quite done yet.

"But you haven't even seen the best part yet!" I argued, sidestepping when he came closer to me. He turned to glare at me and I snapped my fingers, the card reappearing in my hand. "But wait, what's this?" I stared at the card with exaggerated confusion before gasping and pointing it back in his direction. "Oh, my! It's a different card! The Seven of Spades."

"I've had just about enough of your ridicule," Loki growled.

"Ridicule?" I covered my heart with an astonished gasp. "Why, I would never! How dare you accuse me of such a thing? You don't have to get all puffy just because you're jealous of my-"

That was clearly the breaking point for Loki, because in the next second he lunged for my throat. If he still had his staff, I was sure I would be dead by now. I dropped the card to grip his wrists as he latched onto my shirt, shoving me backwards. "It's time for you to stop talking," he commanded in a low voice.

While he continued to push me back I released one of his wrists to reach inside his coat and pull my hand back, now formed into a fist. He switched his critical gaze down to my hand for only a second before I opened it and blew a puff of air, glitter billowing out of it and smothering him. Loki let go of my shirt to step backwards and away from the attack while I hurried in the opposite direction. "Sorry, I don't take kindly to people who shoot me out of the sky!"

Before Loki could get any angrier with me, the windows leading to the balcony shattered as the Hulk broke through it with a deafening roar. Loki swatted the remaining glitter away from his face before looking back and forth between the two of us while shouting, " _Enough!_ You are, all of you, beneath me! I am a _god_ you dull creatures, and I will not be bullied by-"

I jumped in surprise when the Hulk walked forward and picked Loki up by the leg to slam him repeatedly against the ground, causing to big dents before he finally left him in a crater of rubble next to the stairs leading up to the bar. While Loki was left whimpering in pain, the Hulk huffed, "Puny god."

When he turned to look at me, I smiled and offered a small wave. "Hey there, Big Guy. Not gonna lie, that was kind of awesome. Do you know what a high five is?" He just huffed again, clenching his hands into fists before opening them again. "No? Can I show you?"

I walked forward, holding one hand up with my palm facing him. He stared intensely at it while I used my other hand to point towards my palm. "It's easy. Here, put your palm on mine. Like this," I demonstrated how a high five worked with myself before returning my hand to its original position.

The Hulk looked down at his own hand before mimicking my movement of holding it outwards, and I took the last step to bring our hands together, mine just barely covering the center of his oversized palm. I watched with an amused grin as he stared at our touching hands, chuckling quietly. "See? Like I said. Easy."

All it took was a small twitch of my fingers for him to pull his hand back as he grunted. "We'll work on it," I offered.

" _I can close it!"_ I turned to look out one of the few unbroken windows to see Natasha holding Loki's staff against the barrier protecting the Tesseract. _"Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down."_

" _Do it!"_ Steve yelled.

" _No, wait."_

" _Stark, these things are still coming."_

" _I got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it."_

I glanced at the Hulk with worry etched into my features before I ran towards the balcony, crunching over the shattered glass as I ran out onto the cement. I could just barely see the dot of red on the horizon coming in closer. _"Stark, you know that's a one-way trip."_

Green filled the left side of my vision and I knew that the Hulk had followed me out to the balcony, but I kept my eyes trained on Tony as he flew closer to the Tower. I wanted to offer my help, but I didn't know what I could say or do to change anything. I stammered wordlessly, shaking my head. This couldn't be real.

Tony barely managed to push the nuke upwards, scraping slightly against the side of the building before he was flying directly upwards towards the portal. When he disappeared inside of the blue rim, I took another useless step forward to try and see inside the portal. A moment later the sound of an explosion broke free of the portal, followed by a sigh over the comms.

" _Close it."_

I turned to my right to watch Natasha push the scepter further into the machine until a blue blast shot up to the portal, immediately causing it to begin shrinking. At the very last second before it closed, that same red dot came dropping out of the sky that sent a rush of relief through me. That is, until I realized that he wasn't slowing down.

The Hulk let out a low growl before digging his feet deeper into the cement and launching himself into the sky. I ran to the very edge of the balcony as I watched the Hulk snatch Tony out of midair before slamming into a building and dropping out of my sight. I was immediately back on my comms, demanding to know what was happening.

"What's going on down there? Is he okay?"

I was answered by the bellowing roar of the Hulk, followed by a gasp of air. _"What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me."_

While Steve told Tony that we won, I sighed with relief and ran my shaking hands over my face, all of the day's pent up adrenaline finally running out. The entire situation was hard to believe, even though I had just lived it. One day I was a simple street magician, and the next I was mixed up in a battle of worlds with gods from other planets and aliens invading Manhattan. My life is a goddamned movie plot.

I didn't tune back in to the others until Thor said, _"We're not finished yet."_

"I've got Loki handled up here," I informed them, walking back to where the Hulk had left him in the floor. "He's kind of… stuck in the floor. And covered in glitter. It's a fun story."

" _We'll meet you up there,"_ Steve replied.

" _And then shawarma after."_


	13. Planning Ahead

**Planning Ahead**

The day was a blur of activity from SHIELD swooping in to pick up Loki and the Tesseract to Tony making good on his promise by forcing us to go out and eat shawarma with him only minutes after the battle. We were all absolutely exhausted with more than a few scrapes and bruises, but there was no saying no to the man who had been willing to fly through an alien portal to save us.

We didn't stay in the restaurant long, however. Even if Fury hadn't insisted on our returning to the helicarrier, most of us didn't have much of an appetite given everything that had happened anyway. Once there, we changed into clothing that wasn't battle-worn before going into a quick meeting to discuss our next move.

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard," Thor had insisted. "As does Loki. He will be punished under our laws, and the Tesseract will be locked inside the Vault where no man will be able to reach it."

Nobody had any objections, so he went on to explain that he had a plan for returning home. It involved using the Tesseract as a portal and what he described as "dark magic" that nobody really understood, but he seemed confident in his plan and none of us questioned it.

"We'll get you where you need to go," Fury assured Thor after relaying the directions to the portal opening to the SHIELD agents operating the helicarrier. "You and Loki both. As for the rest of you-" He was interrupted a flash of white dipping in front of his face before fluttering around and landing on his shoulder. The entire team watched with expressions of amused confusion as Fury froze up. "Why is there a bird on my shoulder?"

"Lala!" I cheered, running forward and holding my hands out towards the dove. She obediently flew forward to land gently in my palm while I stroked her feathers. "There you are, baby! What were you up to while mommy was saving the world?"

Clint took a small step behind Natasha, shaking his head and pointing at Lala. "Keep that devil bird away from me!"

"She's not a devil bird!" I glared at Clint, tucking Lala against my chest. "She was just protecting me. She's a good little asskicker, aren't you, Lala? Yes, you are!"

Fury sighed deeply before turning his back on us and returning to his pedestal to take back command of the helicarrier, calling back to me over his shoulder. "Just get it off my ship."

I busied myself with cooing over Lala until we were taken to the stone balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. SHIELD had also provided us with transportation for our way out, thanks to Natasha for speaking with Fury about it beforehand. Once we were finally in place, we turned to Thor before he could make his grand exit.

He shook Selvig's hand before facing the rest of us with a smile. "It's been an honor to call you my allies. I hope we meet again someday, and under better circumstances."

"Aww, c'mon buddy," I grinned. "You'll make us cry with these sappy speeches."

Thor patted my shoulder with a chuckled. "My apologies, Alice." After I nodded he walked over to Loki, who was glaring at us all from his spot in the middle of the balcony. Bruce used a large set of pliers to lift the Tesseract out of a briefcase and place it inside a glass tube Erik was holding that he then handed to Thor.

He nodded at us all once more before shoving the opposite end in Loki's hand, who twisted the handle. Blue light shone down on them from an unseen source, absorbing them into the sky. I would have called it one of the weirdest things I'd ever seen if I hadn't just lived through the potential apocalypse.

When they were gone, the rest of us stared at the now empty space for only a moment before breaking off into smaller groups. Clint and Natasha were standing next to their sleek black car, whispering to each other. Steve shook Tony's hand before making his way over to his motorcycle, swinging one leg over the side. Bruce dropped the duffle bag he had been given by Natasha into the backseat of the red car he would be riding in with Tony.

SHIELD had provided me with a black Jeep that was parked at the back of the group, but I walked instead towards where Bruce was standing. After situating his bag, he turned back to face me with a gentle smile. "So, I'm going out to California for a little while," I explained, shoving my hands down into my pockets as I rocked slightly on my heels. "My brother got himself into a bit of trouble with his boss. Something about hacking the company's finance systems and driving his boss's car into a pool."

"That sounds like quite the vacation," Bruce laughed quietly.

"Scott's always been a bit of a troublemaker," I shrugged. "But that's what little brothers are for, I suppose. My point is that I'll be out of town for a couple weeks, and I was wondering if you would still be around when I get back."

He smiled through his thinly veiled confusion, his eyebrows knitting slightly. "Yeah, I'll be around for a while. I've decided to take Tony up on his offer of visiting 'Candy Land'. Why do you ask?"

"Because," I drawled, rolling my eyes, "we still haven't settled our debate over which is superior, magic or science."

"I guess we didn't. Although, it was never really a debate in the first place. I didn't believe that you really had magic, and your goal was to prove to me-"

"I'd like another chance to debate with you," I interrupted, raising one eyebrow with a smirk. For a genius, he was very naive. "Preferably without Tony's incessant interruptions."

"Oh, you… Oh." Bruce chuckled nervously, scratching the back of his neck. There it is. "I don't know if that's the best idea. I'm not very good with… debates," he sighed.

I ducked my head a bit to catch his avoidant eyes, trading my teasing smirk for a soft smile. "I think you'd be wonderful. If there's one thing you should have learned about me by now, it's that I never give up. So, when I get back, you and me." He hesitated for just a moment longer than I was completely comfortable with before releasing his breath in a huff, laughing softly beneath his breath. "I'm taking that as a yes."

Before he could say anything else, I wiggled my fingers with a small flourish that produced a rose between them. When he glanced between the flower and myself, I shrugged as I tucked it into his jacket pocket. "Who says the woman can't give the man a flower?"

"You are… really something else."

I offered Bruce a small yet dramatic bow. "You have my thanks. See you in a few weeks, Umbruce."

"Right," he nodded as I backed away. "See you then."

Tony and I crossed paths while I was walking back towards my own car, and I pointedly ignored the smirk on his face while he gestured back and forth between Bruce and I. Even though nothing had happened, a lady does not clumsily-ask-a-man-on-a-date and tell.

I watched Lala land in the passenger seat with a small flutter of her feathers as I started up the car's engine, waiting for everyone else to pull out before I did. Family problems aside, our work was done, my personal mission was accomplished, and the planet was still intact. Not a bad weekend, if I do say so myself.

* * *

 **And there you have it! Alice's part in the Avengers timeline has come to an end.**

 **Her story is far from over, however. I'm going a new direction with all of my future stories, which will include any further installments in this series, where I'll be straying further from the cannon MCU. This is something I've wanted to do for a while but never got around to due to my fear of you all not enjoying it, but I've had many,** _ **many**_ **requests to go in this direction lately. As Alice's story progresses, it will follow the MCU, though there will be a few changes. I won't spoil anything else. :)**

 **I hope you all enjoyed the story and will continue to follow Alice. But for now, thanks for reading. See you in the next one!**


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